Page 63 of You Lied First

Breaking: Celine Cremorne STRANGLED

Authorities in Oman confirmed in a statement today that injuries found on the body of British expatriate Celine Cremorne are consistent with death by strangulation.

Detectives have launched a murder hunt and are urging anyone with information to come forward.

Police are focusing on leads within the community.

Further updates will be provided as the case develops.

I throw my phone down. Of course they’d be able to tell.

Even after being buried. After I’d dragged Celine back to her tent and positioned her on the mattress, I’d closed her eyes and used her scarf as best I could to hide the bruising that I realised might come out on her neck.

I’d cleaned the sand off her face, but there wasn’t anything I could do about the sand she might have inhaled.

Thankfully, that morning the Forrests had been too shocked and then too preoccupied to notice anything amiss.

When Margot and I had heaved her to the grave, I’d deliberately taken the head end, making sure the scarf still covered any marks on her neck.

Perhaps it had got worse after we’d buried her, too – I really wasn’t an expert on the patterns of blood coagulation after death by strangling, and it’s not something I dared to look up online.

I’m sitting at my dining table thinking all this, not to mention worrying how the news is going to go down with Liv, when Margot calls to invite me over ‘urgently’ for a chat, which sends me straight into a clammy-handed panic.

Has she already figured out that it was me who did it? If she accuses me, will I admit it?

I drive over in contemplative silence, and Flynn lets me in with a nod towards the stairs.

‘She’s in the studio. Up the stairs, first right.’ And so I head on up.

I knock on the door of the room Flynn’s specified and stick my head around.

‘Yoo-hoo!’ I call, trying to lighten the situation. Maybe it would be my last chance to make a joke.

Margot claps a hand to her chest as if she’s seen a ghost. ‘Oh my God! Sara! Jesus! Did you have to do that?’

She’s sitting at the desk on a swivel chair, with an array of fabrics laid out on a large work bench in front of her. To one side stands the frame of an impressive house.

‘So this is where the magic happens,’ I say to hide my nerves. Why am I here? ‘It looks amazing! You’re very talented.’

‘Thanks. It just takes an eye for detail, good eyesight and nimble fingers, that’s all. But look. Enough about me. Can I get you a coffee or tea – or a snifter of something stronger?’

I see she has a cut-glass decanter and a half-drunk glass of something golden on the table. Her bloodshot, puffy eyes make me think it’s something strong.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Is Guy joining us?’

‘He’s not here,’ she says. She gets up and closes the door with a click.

‘There’s something I want to talk to you about on your own, actually.

Sit down.’ She points to the sofa, so I take a seat, sitting politely – nervously – on the edge of it and Margot sits on her work chair, facing me.

She closes her eyes and takes a juddering deep breath in through her nose then lets it out slowly, her hand on her heart. My own breath is shallow in contrast.

‘Okay …’ I prompt. My ears are straining for sounds outside the room. Has she called the police? Are they waiting to pounce? I can’t see any evidence of wires on Margot but then I suppose they wouldn’t be obvious.

‘Is your phone off?’ I ask, searching for a sign that she’s recording the conversation.

‘What? Yes.’

‘Okay. Sorry. Carry on.’

‘So, you saw the autopsy report, right? That she was strangled?’

I nod. ‘Awful. So, unless a car full of bandits turned up in the night, it was one of us, I guess.’

My joke falls flat.

‘Look, Sara, there’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to dive right in,’ Margot says. ‘There’s something I need to ask you before Guy gets home.’

I hold myself very still. I’ve no idea how I’m going to react if she asks me straight out if I did it.

‘You don’t think I did it, do you? she asks. Because—’

‘No! God, no. Not at all. Never crossed my mind.’ I almost laugh with relief.

‘You don’t?’ She seems surprised.

‘No!’

But then I realise that I’ve made a terrible error.

By eliminating Margot, I’ve just placed the blame on either myself or Guy.

And I’ve seen how ruthless he can be. How he’ll put himself above anyone else if push comes to shove.

Now that the knives are out, will we continue to stick together, or will he pick himself and throw me – or Margot – under a bus? Is this the moment the gloves come off?

‘It’s just that, Guy said … oh, never mind.’ Margot flaps her hand. ‘Let me ask you another question: which of us do you think is capable of strangling an adult with their bare hands?’

I stare at her. Has she forgotten that Celine was wearing a scarf?

‘I have a drunken memory of the night “it” happened …’ Margot’s voice is weak, quiet, her lips suddenly trembling with nerves. She takes a swig from her glass and swallows with a wince. ‘Obviously we’d all had a lot to drink. I woke up some time in the wee hours. It was still dark …’

I try to control my breathing and try to look naturally curious, although I can fathom a guess at what she’s about to say: she overheard what happened between Celine and me. Or worse: she got up and saw it.

‘Do you remember how Flynn said he heard a tent zip go down that night?’

I hold myself very still and nod my acknowledgement.

‘Well, I heard it too. The sound of a tent zip lowering, slowly and cautiously. Like whoever was doing it wanted to be quiet.’

‘Okay,’ I manage to say on a shuddery outward breath. I’m still not sure where she’s going with this. Celine and I both unzipped our tents that night. Is she talking about mine, hers or someone else’s?

‘But listen,’ Margot continues, ‘right when we first got back, I asked Guy if he left the tent and he said he didn’t.

He told me I was wrong and it was probably an insect or something.

But then … when Flynn said he heard it too, Guy suddenly changed his story and said it was him and he went for a wee.

’ The expression on Margot’s face as she looks at me is pitiful.

‘Sara, I can’t stop wondering. Why did he lie?

What if he went out that night for something more than a wee? What if he …?’

It takes me a moment to realise she isn’t talking about me at all. That she’s talking about her husband.

‘You think Guy’s the one who did it?’ I rub my chin as I look at her haggard face.

The essence of the Margot I know is gone.

She’s broken, and this is all my fault. I blow air out of my mouth, largely to give myself a moment before speaking.

Is this a route I want her going down, or is it my moment to confess my own secret to her? Can I trust her with it?

‘Why wouldn’t you believe him?’ I say in the end. ‘If he says he went for a wee, he probably went for a wee. Maybe he just forgot, to begin with. He was pretty drunk, wasn’t he?’

The look that flits across her face makes my heart constrict as I remember my own moment with Guy in my house. I lean towards her, my chin resting on my cupped hands which are propped on my knees as I examine her face.

‘Margot, what is it? Are you scared of him?’

She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply before sighing the air back out.

‘It’s just … he likes to be, umm … well, you know Guy.

’ She gives an uneasy little laugh that I don’t return.

I feel like I’m only just learning that Guy, the version that Margot lives with, is not the same person as the jovial Guy who’d charmed Liv and me in Oman.

I hesitate. ‘You know you can always talk to me, don’t you? My house is a safe place if you ever need it.’ I hold my hands up, palms facing her. ‘No judgement. Any time.’

She gives me a small smile. ‘I might need to hold you to that.’

I smile back at her and hope I’m not in jail when, not if, she needs me.

‘Listen,’ I say. ‘Leaving the tent doesn’t mean he killed her. It doesn’t mean anything. Any of us could have left our tents, to be honest.’

‘Is that what you really think?’ Her eyes hold mine. ‘Do you think I should ask Guy if he did it?’ Margot’s breath hitches and I realise that she’s scared.

My head spins; this conversation is like being on a rollercoaster. If Margot asks Guy, he’ll say no. Then she’ll know that I did it. I can’t let that happen.

‘Oh, crikey,’ I say. ‘I don’t know. How do you think he’d take that? Would he …?’ I grimace to give the impression I suspect he might turn violent.

She matches my grimace. ‘We could do it together?’

No way, I think. Not until hell freezes over am I risking a confrontation with Guy about this. Everything will come out. I know it.

‘Look,’ I say. ‘Think about it this way: would you believe him if he said he didn’t do it? Or would there always be a doubt in your mind?’ I pause. ‘And if he says that yes, he killed her, what would you do with that knowledge? What would you do then?’

Margot covers her face with her hands then clutches her hands to her jaws as she speaks.

‘I don’t know! It’s impossible. If I told the police, they’d come after all of us.

He didn’t do it in a bubble. The whole sorry story would come out – how we’d all buried the body and run.

Our lives would be over.’ She waves at the mansion on her desk.

‘All of this, gone. And you’d be dragged into it. We’d all end up in jail.’

I sigh. She’s not wrong.

‘You know what? I think some things are best left unsaid,’ I say. ‘He went to the loo; he didn’t go to the loo. He got some water. Whatever. Move along. Next please.’

Margot stares at me, her blue eyes two burning holes in the whiteness of her face and, as I hold her gaze, I wish I could see inside her head. Does she really think Guy did it? Or was that conversation a ruse to lull me into a false sense of security while she and Guy work out how to hand me in?